Will Thomas - To Kingdom Come

The next day there was another hurling match in Prince’s Park. As I watched, I reflected on the fact that none of the faction members appeared to have occupations. O’Casey was enjoying summer holiday from Trinity, but who fed and sheltered McKeller and the Bannons? Were they all living on American money, like Dunleavy? McKeller suddenly entreated me to stand in for one of the players, but I’d have none of it just yet, nor of the drinking bout that occurred afterward when they won. Instead, after the game I jumped onto the first omnibus, heading back to the O’Casey house.

As I got off in Water Street, I passed a hansom cab sitting at the curb; hearing a voice I recognized, I glanced in. Two men were conversing, while the cabman and the horse waited patiently. One of the men was tall and the other short and stocky. I did not recognize the tall fellow, but there was no mistaking Inspector Munro of the Special Irish Branch. I could not believe he was here in Liverpool, a few blocks from our very street, merely sightseeing.

Suspecting I might be watched, I turned down a narrow alleyway to the next street and passed down it until I was near the back of the O’Casey house. There I squeezed between two buildings set close together, made my way to the back entrance, and went inside and upstairs quietly, so as not to alert anyone.

“Munro is in the area, not three streets from here,” I tumbled out, as I entered our room, but as usual, Barker was ahead of me. He had a chair pulled up against the wall near the window and was peering out while smoking his pipe.

“I’m not surprised. I do not care for the fellow, but he is no fool, and he has great resources.”

“What shall we do?” I whispered.

“We cannot alert the faction,” Barker said adamantly. “If the Special Irish Branch has arrived, I would not willingly jeopardize their investigation merely to save my own. You and I should lie low as much as possible and avoid being taken. Do not leave by the front door, by all means, and stay away from windows. Did you notice any constables at the hurling pitch this afternoon?”

“No, sir, but I wasn’t looking. If we get arrested, is there some way we could talk ourselves out of it? Munro will obviously recognize us if he sees us.”

“He would, but in order to clear the way for his own capture of the faction, he would probably keep us incarcerated for days. I’ve seen suspects held by the S.I.B. for a month.”

“A month!” I cried, my blood running cold.

“Oh, yes,” Barker assured me. “Her Majesty’s government takes treasonous acts very seriously.”

“But we’re innocent!” I stated. “We’re working for the Home Office.”

“Munro is not above his petty jealousies, and, as you are aware, he has a special antipathy for private enquiry agents.”

“Oh, that’s marvelous,” I muttered. “On the one hand, we have to aid the bombers and not reveal ourselves, lest we be killed, and on the other, we risk arrest and incarceration for an indefinite period, even if Munro knows who we are.”

“You put it most succinctly, lad.”

It did not help our predicament that Colonel Alfred Dunleavy came bowling in the next morning through the front door as bold as you please, brimming with confidence about our upcoming assault on London. I wanted to warn him and O’Casey that the Special Irish Branch was in the area, but Barker warned me to silence. We were playing a very close game. Especially damning was a newly acquired map of London with all the bombing sites marked that Dunleavy had brought with him.

“Five men, gentlemen,” he stated loudly enough to be heard in the street as he rolled out the map on the breakfast table around which I, Barker, and O’Casey sat. “Five heroes to bring London to her knees and to free Ireland from the chains of tyranny.”

The bombing targets were marked with stars in red ink. This was the colonel’s element, planning a campaign, a battle plan. Thirty sites were marked on the map.

“My word,” I blurted out, glancing over Dunleavy’s shoulder. “Buckingham Palace.”

“Yes,” Dunleavy enthused, misinterpreting my dread. “And the Houses of Parliament, the Home Office, the Prime Minister’s residence, the Horse Guards, and Scotland Yard again. Whitehall shall be completely reduced to rubble. Then there is the Telephone Exchange, the Central Telegram office and Postal Exchange, the Bank of England-”

“Very good, Colonel,” Barker stated. “I see you have marked all the major train stations, as well. Do you think St. Paul’s is necessary?”

“To my way of thinking, Mr. van Rhyn,” Dunleavy stated, “our biggest troubles with England began when they broke away from the Catholic Church.”

“This is a very bold plan.”

“With your new explosives, we can afford to be bold.”

“So many sites,” O’Casey stated. “However will we manage it with just five men?”

“Each man shall go out armed with two satchels. Each satchel will contain a bomb, already primed and set with a timer. Each man shall deliver a bomb, setting it in some out-of-the-way corner, if possible, and carry the second one to another location. All at once, ten bombs will detonate simultaneously. In the confusion, our bombers shall return, collect two more bombs each, and deliver them to additional sites. A half hour or more later, the second group of bombs will explode, and a half hour beyond that, the third set.”

“So,” Barker said, “the government will be crippled, along with the train stations, the post offices, telegraphs, and the banks.”

“Yes,” Dunleavy continued, “and the gas and water as well. We’ll throw London back into the Dark Ages. Oh, and there is one thing more.”

“And that is?”

“We’re no longer targeting mere buildings, gentlemen. This time there will be casualties. It is time for the gloves to come off. That is why we’ll time our first attack for six o’clock, when the businesses are closing and street traffic is at its highest. Let us see what kind of carnage and terror we can create then.”

We waited for two days for Scotland Yard to appear on the doorstep. The wait was agonizing. Any minute, I thought, Inspector Munro and his boys were going to kick in the door, clap us in darbies, and haul us off to the constabulary for an indefinite stay, all our plans in ruins and Barker’s reputation in disgrace. After two days, however, we saw no sign of the Special Irish Branch in the area. It was a good thing, too, for all this confinement was wearing on our nerves.

“I must get out of this house,” Barker complained to me. “I cannot think here. I believe we can risk relaxing our vigil. Miss O’Casey!”

Maire O’Casey came in from the parlor, where she had been studying Gaelic. Like the others, she never knew how close the Special Irish Branch had been to discovering all of us. “Yes, Mr. van Rhyn?”

“Mr. Penrith has expressed an interest in seeing the docks. We shall take a walk and perhaps see a little more of the city. Would it inconvenience you if we dine out?”

“Not at all, sir. As you wish it.”

“Thank you. You are very kind to a pair of refugees. Come, Thomas.”

My employer seized his ivory-inlaid cane and made his way out the back door and through to the next street while I followed. My duties as assistant to a prominent enquiry agent seemed to involve following Barker, never knowing where he was going or in what situation we would find ourselves once we got there. I was the apprentice, and he the master, but we were also each other’s safeguard, there to help each other out of any possible scrape. Of course, so far, Barker had done all the helping.

We did actually go to the docks. I’ve never been one of those people who has romantic notions of the sea and ships. The life, when it isn’t banal, with its thousand tasks to be done constantly, is often brutal and dangerous. The sea is a cold mistress, and she doesn’t care a fig what happens to you. I had to remind myself, however, that my employer had grown up on it, rising from dockhand through the ranks on various ships until he was captain of his own, the Osprey. I didn’t know a belaying pin from a bo’sun’s whistle, but it had significance to him, significance and a degree of comfort. When we reached Liverpool Quay and looked out upon the forest of masts and the bustle of men loading and unloading, I let him have his head and remained silent for a while, knowing that he had come here to think.